Dr Carolien van de Sandt is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne at the Peter Doherty Institute. On September 1st, 2025, she will take up a new position as Team Leader at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI, Melbourne, Australia). Her principal area of expertise is in viral and aging immunology.
Carolien completed her PhD in 2016 at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam (Netherlands), where she investigated the longevity, cross-reactivity and immune evasion strategies of influenza virus-specific CD8+ T-cells, followed by two postdoctoral years. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious European Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Fellowship and the McKenzie Fellowship to join the Kedzierska laboratory, where she leads the Aging Immunity Research Program. Her research unravels the mechanisms that underly gain-and-loss-of virus-specific CD8+ T-cell function across human lifespan and in high-risk populations. During the pandemic (2020-2021), Carolien relocated to Sanquin (Netherlands), a condition of her MSCA Fellowship. There, she led an independent research team studying SARS-CoV-2 immunity in healthy and autoimmune patients. In 2022 she was awarded the ARC-DECRA Fellowship and the NHMRC Investigator EL2 Fellowship in 2025, to continue her Aging Immunity and T-cell Development Research at the University of Melbourne.
Carolien has 73 publications including in leading journals like Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, Immunity and Nature Communications. The importance of her work has been recognized by 12 prestigious Awards including the ASI-Peter Doherty Medal (2024), the ESWI Claude Hannoun Prize for Best Body of Work (2023), the Viruses Early Career Investigator Award (2022) and in 2024 she was shortlisted for the Nature Inspiring Women: Scientific Achievement Award (2024). Her research was covered by >1000 media features and her contributions to public outreach were recognized by the AIPS-Young Tall Poppy Award (2023) and ASI-Public Engagement Award (2023).
Carolien was on the local organising committee of the Options XII conference for the control of Influenza in Brisbane in 2024. She played a pivotal role in organising an extensive program for early career researchers (ECRs) from social ‘get to know you’ pub quizzes to careers lunches. Carolien has continued her commitment to ECRs by joining the ISRV education committee.
Carolien successfully organised the first ECR events at the Options XII conference and has a strong passion for public outreach. As a result of this experience, she has recently joined the ISRV Education Committee, to continue engagement with ISRV and contribute to the community.
Carolien aspires to create events for ECRs that foster networking and professional development opportunities. Her initiatives aim to retain talented young researchers by setting them up for success, which will ultimately benefit the whole field.